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by Robert MacDermid (Communications Officer)

26 Aug 02 - Parking charges for an outer lot at York go up another 30% beginning in September.

A year-round parking permit for an outer lot now costs $888 before taxes.

And there are similar increases in store for future years, according to the Board of Governors approved university parking plan. According to the plan, that same outer lot spot is going to cost at least $1080 in 2005-06.

The new parking plans were presented to YUFA through JCOAA (Joint Committee on the Administration of the Agreement) last spring. YUFA representatives were critical of the increases but it was very clear that the Board of Governors approved plan was going ahead regardless of what faculty might say. YUFA will have to consider bringing this issue to the bargaining table.

If  you were even a little annoyed about the most recent increases and had passing thoughts about how the employer gives with one hand and takes away with the other, you’re not being unreasonable. I dug out my pay slips for the past 10 years to find that my cost to park in the same unreserved lot beyond McLaughlin College has gone up an average of 19% per year, while my monthly regular pay has gone up about 5% per year. 

With 1992 as the base year, parking in the same lot has gone up 463% and salary has gone up 153%.

The rates we pay to park at York are already far higher than what faculty and staff pay at nearly all other Ontario universities, many of which have higher salary levels than York.

The official Financial Statements of the University, make no specific mention of revenues from and costs of parking on campus but other evidence such as minutes from Board meetings, suggests that parking revenues are being used to pay for other costs.

Most other people who work in north Toronto and beyond probably don't pay any money to park their cars at work. Even if they have to get downtown to a job, it costs just 3 or 4 dollars to leave a car in a TTC parking lot at the end of the subway.

Part of the excessive increases comes from the reclassification of parking spots.  The number of spaces and lots that used to be outer unreserved has shrunk to almost nothing, while the same lots have been re-designated as outer "reserved" with a higher rate.

York’s surface parking lots are also limited by municipal regulations designed to limit rainwater runoff in urban areas. More surface lots are not an option under the existing rules, necessitating the need for the two parking structures and a further three in preparation or planning. The Schulich parking structure will cost about $48 million with another $28 million for an attached  “face building”. (See York University Board of Governors, Minutes of the Meeting of 3 December 2001)

The newly named Parking and Transportation Services in their spiffy and spacious new offices in the new parking garage behind the Library are trying hard to recast themselves as public transit and environmental advocates.

York Region and Go bus services to the campus have increased from next to nothing to a regular if not always convenient service.  But there are still complaints about waits and changing frequency of the TTC express bus service to the Downsview subway station. Sometime in January 2003 there will be a new GO station nearby with a shuttle bus to York, but the service is morning and evening commuter oriented and runs out to Bradford, Newmarket, Aurora, King City, Maple and the Rutherford station in Vaughan.